


Flames

by AgentStannerShipper



Series: tumblr ficlets [83]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Character Study, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Relationship, TV Show spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 15:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19232044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: Crowley should have burned the moment he crossed the church's threshold, but Crowley is good at ignoring fire.





	Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my response ficlets to the tv show: a character study of Crowley and the church scene, considering my personal headcannon that a demon should burst into flames on holy ground.

Crowley is the only demon with any real sense of imagination, and he has always been very good at imagining he is not on fire. It helped him in the past, those first painful days in Hell, scared and confused, nearly repentant and outraged that he might be asked to repent for something as simple as questioning, burning, _burning_ , the first of the damned in hellfire. It will help him in the future, to hold a car together, to race to the end of the world and the angel waiting there for him. It is helping him at present, because to cross the threshold of a church is enough to make any demon’s heels smoke, to set them ablaze with smiting divinity.

Crowley is not on fire because he believes he is not on fire, believes it with everything in him, with a strength of conviction most humans could only dream of. Because his angel is in that church. His beautiful, stupid, naively optimistic angel, who is going to die, who might very well Fall if he does, making a deal with a devil that even he does not understand. Crowley can hold back the flames with belief that strains his powers, that makes his eyes glow red behind black glasses, but he cannot stop the stabbing pain in his feet. He hobbles. He prances. He makes a joke of it. But he goes inside, goes straight to the alter, his feet hotter and hotter with every step closer to where Aziraphale is standing, searing not the flesh but the essence inside.

He pretends it does not hurt just as badly when Aziraphale asks if he’s with them. Crowley has done many evil things, but this? This is far beyond him.

The bomb falls. Crowley’s feet cool: holy ground desecrated by human evil, but Aziraphale is not worried about the church. Aziraphale, his angel, who trusted Crowley about the bomb, who could have simply shielded himself but who shielded Crowley too, on instinct, without even thinking about it, is worried about a bag of books.

Crowley knows his angel. Knows Aziraphale would balk at being called his, would list a thousand reasons against the notion and would throw up walls taller than Eden’s gates if Crowley ever spoke it aloud. But Crowley does know him. He knows Aziraphale inside and out. He knows the little smouldering coal inside Aziraphale, the last tiny bit of angelic mistrust – not hatred, never hatred – that Aziraphale holds for him, a spark beneath the surface.

Crowley hands him the books and walks away, throwing a casual offer of a ride over his shoulder. Aziraphale does not move, but Crowley can feel something shift in the air between them. It is the last dying remnants of a fire going out in Aziraphale’s chest, replaced by something a demon cannot sense. It is the spark of hope being lit in Crowley’s, because what a demon cannot sense is love.

To love Aziraphale would be foolish. To love something holy, for a demon, is to burn. But Crowley is good at ignoring the fire, and for his angel, Crowley would quash every inferno in Hell through sheer belief. He is a fool on fire, but he is willing to burn for love.


End file.
